The Power of Anti-Racism and Social Justice Work on Campus:Fostering Inclusion and Building Trust in University LeadershipPresentation to APLU Council on Strategic CommunicationsAssata Zerai, Ph.D. Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Professor of SociologyUniversity of New Mexico 26 July 2021
Challenges to building trust in communications from university leadership
� Perception that official statements from leadership are merely performative
� Forgoing opportunities to receive input from content-matter experts on your campus (DEI offices, faculty with research expertise, community liaisons such as student affairs professionals working with students from marginalized groups/cultural house directors)
� Lack of follow-up and/or follow-through activities to address underlying issues that an incident has revealed (sometimes follow-up means creating a forum to hear affected groups, such as vigils, panel discussions, town halls—to collect more info before designing a way forward)
� Lack of appropriate timeliness of communications and/or off-putting tone (e.g. lacks compassion, not person-centered and/or not centered on or inclusive of marginalized communities as an audience)
� Inaccurate information or assumptions (including implicit bias) about affected groups or an incident to which leadership is responding
1. Action-oriented and linked to university-wide diversity and inclusion strategy2. Follow-up and follow-through3. Transparent: timelines and dashboards to demonstrate progress made to address an issue4. Cultural humility: working with stakeholders to develop culturally appropriate communications
Principles of communications that build trust in leadership with regards to
diversity, equity, accessibility & inclusion [DEAI]
ACTION-ORIENTED EXAMPLE• Incident affecting university community
and specific targeted groups: hate crime committed against Director of Africana Studies at UNM
• Multiple messages needed: as events unfolded, learned that is was a multifocal online attack against several offices
• Became aware of widespread perception that anti-Blackness was a common experience among Black minority at UNM as an HSI
FOLLOW-UP and FOLLOW-THROUGH• Held town hall on combating anti-Blackness
at UNM• Black Faculty Truth Commission established• Rapid response protocols to address online
harassment and threats of physical attacks
CONNECTION to DEI STRATEGIC PLAN• Had published plan for hiring URM faculty• Microaggressions survey and interventions
Principles of communications that build trust in leadership in regards to DEAI
3. Transparent: timelines to demonstrate progress made to address an issue (new UNM seal and mural occlusion); and dashboards (faculty diversity)4. Cultural humility: working with stakeholders to design culturally appropriate communications and follow-up activities
New UNM Faculty Diversity Strategic DashboardCurrent view: All University
Can be viewed by campus and college.
See:http://oia.unm.edu/facts-and-figures/dei-benchmarking-goals.html
Virtual Vigil to Honor and Mourn in Solidarity
with the AAPI Communities in Albuquerque
Friday, April 9th at 5:30pm
Register for Virtual Webinar:https://goto.unm.edu/w8ho7
4. Cultural humility: working with stakeholders to create culturally responsive and sustaining communications and follow up activities
e.g. response to attack on AAPI community in Atlanta
Final thoughts: Fostering Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion (DEAI) and Building Trust in Leadership
Striking that right tone isn’t easy
But if you can align with your DEAI strategic plans and
Specifically if you’re engaged in ongoing efforts to address sexual assault and harassment, racism, ableism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, transphobia, and heterosexism, plus… this will
Create a milieu that produces authentic communications and builds trust in leadership
9
Thank you!
LGBTQ Resource Center505.277.54288
Men of Color
Initiative (MOCI)
Institute for Study of“Race” and
Social Justicerace.unm.edu
WE INVITE YOU TO CONTACT US:
Division for Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Acronyms¡ Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), to Include Asian/API, Latinx, & Others ¡ Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, & Inclusion (DEAI) ¡ Ethnography of UNM (EUNM)¡ Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual/Pansexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, Asexual (LGBTQIA)¡ Liaisons for Equity, Advocacy & Diversity (LEAD) Council of Associate Deans for Diversity (& related titles)¡ Minority Serving Institution (MSI)¡ National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD) Faculty Success Program (FSP)¡ Office For Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP)¡ UNM Office of Institutional Analytics (OIA)¡ Person(s) with Disabilities/Disabled Persons (PWD)¡ Queer and Trans People of Color (QTPOC)¡ Racial and Intersectional Micro-aggression(s) [RIMA(s)], to include racial, class, sexual orientation, gender
identity and expression, and ableism (discrimination and bias against Persons with Disabilities)¡ Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE)¡ Underrepresented Racial/Ethnic Minority (URM), to include Native American/American Indian, Black/African
American, & Latinx/Chicanx/Hispano¡ Vice President for Equity and Inclusion (VPEI)
References
Baca Zinn, Maxine and Ruth E. Zambrana. Chicanas/Latinas advance intersectional thought and practice. Gender and Society
(2019), 33(5): 677-701.
Bracey, Glenn E., "Toward a critical race theory of state." Critical Sociology 41.3 (2015): 553-572.
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America (Boulder,
CO: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014).
Cheryan S, Plaut VC, Davies PG, Steele CM. Ambient belonging: how stereotypical cues impact gender participation in
computer science. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2009;97(6):1045-1060. doi:10.1037/a0016239
Collins, Patricia Hill. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. (New York: Routledge,
2009).
---. Intersectionality as Critical Social Theory (Durham, NC: Duke University, 2019).
---. On Intellectual Activism (Philadelphia: Temple University, 2012).
Collins, Patricia Hill, Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang. "Decolonization is not a metaphor." Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education
and Society 1.1 (2012). Joseph Feagin. Systemic racism: A theory of oppression. (New York: Routledge, 2013).
Crenshaw, Kimberlè, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller and Kendal Thomas. Critical Race Theory: Key Writings that Formed the
Movement (New York: New Press, 1995).
References (continued)
DeLeon, Josephine, Kiran Katira, Nancy López, Glenabah Martinez and Norma A. Valenzuela. “Navigating Resistance to Antiracist
and Anti-oppressive Curriculum in a Diverse Public University: Critical Race Theory, the Fetish of ‘Good Intentions’ and Social Justice
Praxis.” International Journal of Curriculum and Social Justice (2017), 1(2): 11-68.
Denzin, Norman K. and Yvonne S. Lincoln. “Introduction: Critical methodologies and indigenous inquiry,” In Norman K.
Denzin, Yvonne S. Lincoln and Linda Tuhiwai Smith. (Eds.), Handbook of critical and indigenous methodologies (Thousand
Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2008:2).
DeVault, Marjorie. Liberating Method: Feminism and Social Research (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999).
Fanon, Franz. The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove, 1968). bell hooks. Teaching to Transgress. (New York: Routledge, 2014).
Gómez, Laura. Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race (New York: New York University Press, 2018).
Gordan, Lewis and Jane Anna Gordon. Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2006).
Harwood, S. A., Browne Huntt, M., Mendenhall, R., Lewis, J. A. (2010). Racial microaggressions at the University of Illinois at Urbana–
Champaign: Voices of students of color living in university housing. Urbana, IL University of Illinois, Center on Democracy in a
Multiracial Society.
---. (2012). Racial microaggressions in the residence halls: Experiences of students of color at a predominantly White
university. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 5(3), 159–173. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028956
References (continued)Kearney, Grainne P., Michael K. Corman, Nigel D. Hart, Jennifer L. Johnston, & Gerard J. Gormley. Why institutional
ethnography? Why now? Institutional ethnography in health professions education. Perspect Med Educ (2019) 8:17–24.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-019-0499-0
Lewis, JA, Mendenhall, R, et al. Racial Microaggressions and Sense of Belonging at a Historically White University. June 2019.
American Behavioral Scientist
Lewis, JA, Mendenhall, R, Harwood, SA, Browne Huntt, M. “Ain’t I a Woman?”: Perceived Gendered Racial Microaggressions
Experienced by Black Women. The Counseling Psychologist. 2016;44(5):758-780. doi:10.1177/0011000016641193
López, Nancy. Hopeful girls, troubled boys: Race and Gender Disparity in Urban Education, (New York: Routledge, 2003).
---. 2019. “’Working the cracks’ in academia and beyond: Cultivating ‘race’ and social justice convergence spaces, networks, and
liberation capital for social transformation in the neoliberal university.”
López, Nancy, Christopher Erwin, Melissa Binder and Mario Chavez. “Making the Invisible Visible: Advancing Quantitative
Methods Through Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality for Revealing Complex Race-Gender-Class Inequalities in Higher
Education, 1980- 2015.” Special Issue: QuantCrit: Critical Race Theory and Quantitative Research Methods, Race, Ethnicity and
Education, 21.2 (2018): 180-207.
Lorde, Audre. “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Defining Difference.” In Lorde, Audre Sister Outsider (Trumansburg, NY:
Crossing Press, 1984:114-123 c.f.).
References (continued)Margolis, Eric, and Mary Romero. 1998. “The department is very male, very white, very old, and very conservative”: The
Functioning of the Hidden Curriculum in Graduate Sociology Departments. Harvard Educational Review, 68(1):1–32.
Martinez, Glenabah. Native pride: The politics of curriculum and instruction in an urban public school. (Hampton Press, 2010).
Murphy MC, Steele CM, Gross JJ. Signaling threat: how situational cues affect women in math, science, and engineering
settings. Psychol Sci. 2007;18(10):879-885. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01995.x
Pierce, C. M., Is bigotry the basis of the medical problems in the ghetto? In J. C. Norman (Ed.), Medicine in the ghetto. New York:
Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1969. Pp. 301–312.
---. Psychiatric problems of the black minority. In S. Aneti and G. Caplan (Eds.), American handbook of psychiatry, 2nd ed. New
York: Basic Books, 1974. Pp. 512–523.
---. The formation of the black psychiatrists of America. In C. Willie, B. Brown, and B. Kramer (Eds.), Racism and mental health.
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973. Pp. 525–553.
Quay, Lisa 2017. Leveraging Mindset Science to Design Educational Environments that Nurture People’s Natural Drive to Learn.
APLU.
Rebaka, Reiland. 2010. Epistemic Apartheid: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Disciplinary Decadence of Sociology (Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books, 2010, 16).
References (continued)
Romero, Mary (1992) Maid in the U.S.A. New York: Routledge.
---. (1997) Women and Work: Race, Ethnicity and Class. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Romero, Mary, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Vilma Ortiz (1997) Challenging Fronteras: Structuring Latina and Latino Lives
in the U.S.: An Anthology of Readings. New York: Routledge.
Sisneros, Samuel. Student Activism and the Three Peoples Paintings Challenging Settler Mythology at the University of New
Mexico. Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 44:1 Spring 2019
---. "The Zimmerman Library Mural in the National Register of Historic Places: A Working Paper and Timeline." (2020).
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/ulls_fsp/143
Rouillon, Vanessa Isabel Calderon. 2013. Reconfiguring Racial Uplift: Church-sponsored African American Rhetorical Work In
The Early Twentieth Century [Dissertation] University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Smith, Dorothy. The Everyday World as Problematic: Feminist Sociology (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1987).
Solorzano , Daniel G. (1998) Critical race theory, race and gender microaggressions, and the experience of Chicana and
Chicano scholars, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 11:1, 121-136, DOI: 10.1080/095183998236926
Sue, Derald Wing. 2010. Microaggressions in everyday life: race, gender, and sexual orientation. John Wiley & Sons
---. Race Talk and the Conspiracy of Silence: Understanding and Facilitating Difficult Dialogues on Race. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley,
2015
References (continued)
Sue, Derald Wing, David Sue, and Derald Wing Sue. Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice. New York: J. Wiley,
2003
Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A. M. B., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial
microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice. American Psychologist, 62(4), 271–
286. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.62.4.271
Whitaker, M. C. & E. A. Grollman (Eds.), Counternarratives from women of color academics: Bravery, vulnerability, and
resistance (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 33-42.
Wilderson, Frank. Afropessimism (Liveright Publishing, 2020).
Woodson, Carter G. The Mis-Education of the Negro, (Book Tree, 2006).
Zambrana, Ruth E.. Toxic Ivory Tower: The Consequences of Work Stress on Underrepresented Minority Faculty (New Brunswick,
NJ: Rutgers University, 2018).
Zerai, Assata. 2000. “Agents of Knowledge and Action: Selected Africana Scholars and their Contributions to the
Understanding of Race, Class and Gender Intersectionality” Cultural Dynamics 12(2): 182-222.
---. Intersectionality in Intentional Communities: The Struggle for Inclusivity in Multicultural US Protestant Congregations
(Lexington Books, 2016).
Top Related